VikiLeaks creator Adam Carroll to talk with ethics committee in April

A former Liberal researcher who targeted Public Safety Minister Vic Toews in an online stunt will talk about his use of the VikiLeaks30 Twitter account on House of Commons equipment next month.

Adam Carroll will appear before the ethics committee on April 24 after weeks of political wrangling about when he would actually appear before the committee. He will speak for the full two hours that the committee meets that day.

Carroll and his lawyer agreed to meet with the committee, but asked for a simple accommodation. That accommodation is to give him small breaks during the meeting. According to the minutes from Tuesday’s ethics committee meeting, the committee agreed that “when necessary and appropriate, and at the request of the witness, the Chair suspend the meeting to allow for small breaks.”

Carroll had previously turned down opportunities to appear before the committee, saying that he was not well enough to speak. Carroll stuck to that reasoning even after the committee voted behind closed doors to summon Carroll to testify. Carroll’s lawyer, Paul Champ wrote to the committee, saying that his client was under a doctor’s order to restrict his activities.

“He is consulting with his doctor today to determine his fitness to appear and whether he can appear with some medical restrictions,” Champ wrote in a letter to the committee earlier this month.

Carroll resigned as a Liberal Party researcher in late February after he admitted to being behind the VikiLeaks30 Twitter account that posted 140-character details of Toews’ divorce proceedings. The Twitter account was launched in the wake of the government’s controversial online surveillance bill, and Toews comments in the House of Commons that opposition MPs could either side with the government or side with child pornographers, which the legislation, Bill C-30, targets.